Yardsmart: A different winter harvest

An old expression goes that if you put a frog into a kettle of hot water, he'll jump out immediately. But if you put him in cold water and gradually heat it up, he'll cook to death. If I had known from the start how much pruning was involved, I might have planted just three trees, not 30!

An old expression goes that if you put a frog into a kettle of hot water, he'll jump out immediately. But if you put him in cold water and gradually heat it up, he'll cook to death. If I had known from the start how much pruning was involved, I might have planted just three trees, not 30!

Those first winters were easy, with each sapling needing just a few judicious cuts to correct water sprouts and suckers, and remove broken or conflicting branches. Each year that passed, the trees required a bit more time. Then one January morning, I woke up and realized it would take at least a month of work to get the orchard properly pruned.

But that wasn't the worst of it. It would take another month to gather up all the cuttings and drag them to the burn pile so we could mow in the spring. I was looking at close to three months of weekends to complete that orchard's winter chores.

Let this be a lesson to those who long for a large home orchard. If you don't properly prune your trees, they may not produce fruit, or they'll yield so much that the branches break. A young sapling takes a few minutes to prune. A mature semi-dwarf can take a weekend. A full-sized fruit tree can take considerably more time. Long-neglected trees can become a huge time-consuming effort to clean up.

There is one way to make this pruning process pay off -- recycle the cuttings while pruning. I'd make the cut, then sort the piece as I went along. This slowed things down, sure, but in the long run it made the effort really pay off with another harvest.

I realized that each stick could become a stake for tall perennial flowers. Longer rods would become teepees for my pole beans. Still more could be woven into basket-like wattle for fencing, raised beds and a dozen other options. Wattle is an old technique that depends on freshly pruned rods that are still flexible compared to other uses for stiff sticks that are stronger because they are fully dried out.

Go back in time and you'll find that virtually everything for farm and garden was made from this process. The possibilities are endless for this free byproduct of pruning, but only if you harvest it correctly.

Evaluate all your prunings to determine how they are best used. Straight new growth common atop apple trees often lack side shoots, so these make the most perfect rods for crafts. The long, straight growth from the base of the trunk known as suckers or similar rods from the midst of the canopy are often equally as streamlined, just bigger. Once cut, each piece is set into a pile of pieces of similar lengths.

Page 2 of 2 - Those still too green to use for projects that require a solid straight rod must be dried out properly. I lay them out flat in a single layer on a concrete slab or wood decking to harden off. I prefer they are covered such as in a barn, shed or garage where they're protected from rain and snow. That helps the bark remain in place as each one slowly dries out. Notice the beautiful speckled bark of apple-tree rods and you'll see why maintaining it during drying is so desirable.

If the wood is left out in the weather or on the ground where there's earth-to-wood contact, rot quickly sets in. This causes the bark to peel away and the inner core of the wood may split, too.

Less-perfect pieces can be further cut into rods by trimming off all the limbs and left to winter over outdoors. They're better for use in the vegetable garden or other outdoor projects.

Certainly pruning fruit trees is a chore, but for those who live modestly and spend little, the results can be a treasure trove. Once you begin to notice how many beautiful things are made from this kind of material, the more appealing the task becomes. In a world where everything costs too much and is all too often made of plastic, the fruit-tree grower's payoff is more than just food. It's a different winter harvest.

Maureen Gilmer is an author, horticulturist and landscape designer. Learn more at www.MoPlants.com. Contact her at mogilmer@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 891, Morongo Valley, CA 92256.